Song Of The Day – Lou Reed Tribute

A selection of his best work with The Velvet Underground, his solo material, and his collaboration with John Cale. I could post fifty videos/tracks which says it all. One of the greats. His passing reminds us that great music is timeless and lives forever.

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Song Of The Day – 1999 by Ruff Sqwad

From the album ‘Guns and Roses Volume 1’ (2005)

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David Cameron you should embrace futility, and claim political infamy by helping Scotland gain Independence.

cameron salmond

What’s that theory about bravery? That it’s a combination of ten percent fear, five percent arrogance, five percent reason and eighty percent stupidity – something like that? The problem with you David Cameron is you’ve tried to make the big brave decisions of your Premiership within that twenty percent of non stupidity. It hasn’t worked. Now it’s time you embraced the stupid, and were truly brave. That means debating Alex Salmond one-on-one. Yes, you heard me, let me map out ‘The Plan’.

Why agree to the debate you ask? Well, all that’s left for you, David, is infamy. That’s your only remaining path to immortality. And like all borderline sociopaths, coming first, in anything, should count the most. Being the worst Prime Minister in the modern history of the United Kingdom, that’s what’s at stake now. It’s within reach, you could surpass your beloved Maggie, now wouldn’t that be an achievement?

Hanging on for grim death, aka political and intellectual respectability, as you are just now, is beneath a man of your glorious heritage.

And that’s what your attempts at political pragmatism are. You’ve insisted that you and your party ‘will fight for the UK with everything we’ve got’. I notice you said ‘party’. Was that a slip of the tongue, or a mistake born of repetition? Still, that comment doesn’t marry with you allowing Alistair Darling, of Labour, to head the No campaign in the debates, does it? Mind you, the ConLib coalition has been such a farce in Westminster, when it comes to the referendum on Scottish independence, why not add Labour to the coalition clusterfuck? I’ll concede it’s not a bad plan with the 2015 general election in mind, but you should concede. The game’s up.

Like all the worst Prime Ministers in Britain’s history you share a trait, either through vindictiveness or incompetence, of eliding your responsibilities. Sorry, I meant delegating, many duties to your cabinet, which you’ve filled impressively with the most hideous and preposterous characters possible. After all that’s what they’re there for: to take the fall for your failures. But ‘He just done a reshuffle and everythink’ isn’t going to engender a lasting positive change in how you’re perceived. Osborne, Gove, Hague, Duncan-Smith, Hunt, May all still remain, thankfully, incompetents all. They’re a reflection of you, and you reflect badly.

But now bad isn’t bad enough, David. Not if you want to be the worst. Now you need to be seen as Stalin-esque and Thatcher-esque – preferably at the same time. Your performance at PMQ’s yesterday was just the start. But what a start it was! You sounded nasty and vindictive on wanting to roll back the green energy levies, and you responded like a remorseless dictator when challenged on the legitimacy of rising fuel prices, but this is isn’t enough David.

For ‘The Plan’ to succeed you need to take complete control of the one area that you’re really good at – debates. You’re a natural. It’s time for that skill to be put to good use.

So enough of this agonising tough talk while you keep your distance from the debate on Scottish Independence. No more dismissing of Salmond’s requests for a one-on-one debate. Take the bastard head on. If you continue to let Alistair Darling head the debate on behalf of the No campaign, it will only come across as a pathetic attempt to insulate yourself from another potential failure. You don’t want to be seen as pathetic, do you David? No, I thought not. The time for damage limitation is over. The time for self harming is just beginning David. It’s time for self-immolation. Or as the Yanks would say: ‘owning that shit’.

And how has it come to this? There have been too many tactical and policy failures during your Premiership. The Lynton Crosby plan hasn’t worked. You tried your best to be a good liar, but to achieve our goal of sustaining an economically fascist England something has to give. Something will have to be sacrificed to keep people distracted. It must be you David. You’ll be held as being unintentionally (but really intentionally) responsible for ensuring the dissolution of the Union. Add this to the many deeply unpopular (with the liberals and plebeians, and the liberal plebeians) Tory policies you’ve brought to pass, and we create a combination of reductive awfulness far more likely to historically resonate for generations. By entering the debate arena at this moment, yes, yes, with gusto, of course, you can even present the façade of trying to save the Union as you said you would. Even if it might seem like a delusional notion right now, your beloved Tories could win a majority of the English vote again in 2015. You, we, have virtually no footing in Scotland, so there’s simply nothing to lose by getting rid of that block of Labour votes in Scotland for good. Who cares if Scotland’s leaving of the Union hurts the rest of the UK financially? We’ve already used power to feather our nests, and those of our friends.

And just imagine, you can become not just a Tory hero if you martyr yourself, but an English one too. If you bomb in the debates, that helps us to remove a sponging Scotland, and starts us on the path to ensuring a glorious future for a Tory England. The blueprint would be established for us to be completely rid of all the dead weight we carry. After the Scottish ‘success’, thanks to you, the Welsh would surely want to follow suit with a referendum of their own. We could give the Irish back the north of their country. England would be wholly independent again. And this catalyst for change would all be down to your glorious sacrifice David.

Regardless, you have to debate Alex Salmond now for a more pressing reason – he has besmirched your honour and your name.

Before the SNP party conference this past weekend, Salmond had accused you of being ‘feart’ of a one-on-one debate. How dare this fat little man from the colonies slander you in this way? Salmond requested a one-on-one debate again in his speech in Perth, did you see that David? Even worse he had a wider television audience, the legitimate political platform of his own party conference, and a vastly better, more concise script too. Nonetheless the debate section of the speech was scathing, in particular the intonation of the request essentially translated to him calling you a chicken-shit cunt. Clearly this was a tactical ploy by Salmond and the Yes campaign’s brain trust.

Why? They know that even the most resilient and patient men like you can only be goaded so often. And we must be realistic, they’re confident for a reason. Regardless of what polling data you select across the spectrum, and there are so many, the referendum polls have all shown shifts over the summer. The Yes campaign is gaining ground, even if at this point it can’t be quantified. But the belief among them is there, as is the impression that they’re going to win. It’s telling that it’s Salmond who’s continuously insistent on the debate, not us. He’s a man who is confident that he has the facts and momentum on his side. Our feckless Unionist colleagues won’t admit this, but they know it. You know it. Unless you act now and seize the day, you could lose your shot at history. Accept the challenge of failure David.

Actually I’ve just thought of a perfect parallel for your predicament in the debate David. Think of your task as similar to Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, the Iraqi army head of communications, who suggested US forces would not reach Baghdad during the invasion, only for Sadaam’s statue to fall in Baghdad’s Firdos Square days later. During the debate your comments have to appear to be both naïve enough to invite Salmond to attack our policies in relation to Scotland and only Scotland, while you must stringently defend their use in England. Salmond is a petty Nationalist and Socialist swine who only cares about Scotland. You can use his tunnel vision to entrap him unwittingly into this plan. Just remember, you’re a natural at this David, don’t think about it too hard. That’s the key.

cameron sad face

I know ‘The Plan’ is hard to take. Retaining Number Ten was still in our hands before BT (Bedroom Tax). You probably felt you could hide away in confidence from this silly referendum and not have to contemplate this new vastly different future for yourself. The No vote would succeed through a combination of voter apathy, the SNP’s need to prove itself and its message for independence as legitimate, and that this would be made more difficult when confronted and resisted with the immaculately crafted series of lies we provided Better Together to stop them. But The SNP have validated their message and rubbished the lies about an independent Scotland’s inability to be economically self sufficient. This isn’t true of course. They’re the liars. But their lies are better than ours now.

As it stands, with the white paper date now set, the onus has now shifted on us, the No campaign, to state our case. This would mean we actually have to formulate one, or conjure new lies, which brings us to Alistair Darling, that queer looking man. I’d imagine that it’s occurred to him that helping maintain the Union potentially helps Labour in a general election, given their electoral presence in Scotland. We have to stop this. It’s another reason in favour of sabotaging the Union. Given his previous job I also find it hard to believe that Darling isn’t aware of the economic truth that Scotland’s deficit is exacerbated as a result of being part of the Union. A man armed with too much information is liable to be successful in a debate, or at the very least not fail. We cannot trust him to fail.

The Yes campaign has never been in a position where it could afford to be complacent. They have armed themselves with quixotic pledges that full autonomy will deliver a fairer society, with higher living standards. Think about it logically David, what do we the No campaign have to offer them?

We have a litany of failed and unpopular policies, the effect of which has been blunted by certain devolved powers to Holyrood. We’ve privatised everything. Grangemouth has hit the rocks. Though that, perversely, could actually help us now with our change of tack. The little folk up north want filthy socialist policies, like nationalised energy. The attempted sabotage of the refinery plays straight into their campaign strategy. Salmond wants to keep it open at all costs. This is good, remember, we want Scotland to be the North Korea to our South, only in this case they wouldn’t have nuclear weapons, what weapons they are!

Look at it this way: giving the Scottish people this phony freedom helps us to trap our own underclass in England. We must, at all costs, preserve this wonderful work, to ensure the immense and ever increasing wealth and class disparity remains in place for future generations. Have you read George Orwell’s ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ David? No? Well let me read out this passage from it. Before I do can I just say that your decision to put Gove in charge of education was a masterstroke; his ‘dirty’ work will help shape an intellectually impoverished, politically apathetic and subservient society which we will extort for generations:

He did not see that the continuity of an oligarchy need not be physical, nor did he pause to reflect that hereditary aristocracies have always been shortlived, whereas adoptive organizations such as the catholic church have sometimes lasted for hundreds or thousands of years. The essence of oligarchical rule is not father-to-son inheritance, but the persistence of a certain world-view and a certain way of life, imposed by the dead upon the living. A ruling group is a ruling group so long as it can nominate its successors. The party is not concerned with perpetuating its blood but with perpetuating itself. Who wields power is not important, provided that the hierarchical structure remains the same.

All the beliefs, habits, tastes, emotions, mental attitudes that characterise our time are really designed to sustain the mystique of party and prevent the true nature of present-day society from being perceived. Physical rebellion, or any preliminary move towards rebellion, is at present not possible. From the proletarians nothing is to be feared. Left to themselves, they will continue from generation to generation and from century to century, working, breeding and dying, not only without the impulse to rebel, but without the power of grasping that the world could be other than it is. They could only become dangerous if the advance of industrial technique made it necessary to educate them more highly; but, since military and commercial rivalry are no longer important, the level of popular education is actually declining. What opinions the masses hold, is looked on as a matter of indifference. They can be granted intellectual liberty because they have no intellect. In a party member, on the other hand, not even the smallest deviation of opinion on the most unimportant subject can be tolerated.

Sounds great, doesn’t it? England ruled, without resistance, by your future ideologues. But we’re not there yet.

To help us get there we have our friends at the BBC diligently trying to keep the No voters misinformed and immured. But really all they’re doing is making sure our fellow Little Englanders are lied to about the facts. This sets us up beautifully. It’s amusing watching the BBC continue to peddle the ‘factual’ paucity of the Yes campaign’s popularity. We had one of our favourite minions Norman Smith straight after Salmond’s speech had ended telling us of the difficulty of the Yes campaign’s position. That’ll make your failure all the more spectacular and inexplicable, and disguise the long term machinations of ‘The Plan’. And what we’ve done to the BBC News will serve us and ‘The Plan’ well in the future. Its decline has been visible since the insertion of Lord Patten as the head of the BBC Trust. The cuts that followed to the News division’s budget have robbed it of any journalistic credibility and impartiality it had left. Don’t worry, the insistence that the BBC News is now purely a medium for our propaganda, and the overall movement of the commie intelligentsia in our print media, and on social media to expose this, is meagre when faced with the overwhelming desire of the great unwashed to watch X-Factor or Strictly instead. Now there’s an idea – maybe you could do Strictly at some point?

Don’t scoff David. Afterward things will be so bad for a while that doing Strictly will feel like a godsend. Most people are fickle bastards who would love to see David Cameron destroyed by a real politician who truly cares about something. We both know that’s not the truth David. So let’s make sure we give them a truth they’ll accept, that you’re the most destructive Prime Minister since Thatcher. The media will castigate you, castigate us, but eventually we’ll use that to deflect attention away from our economic fascism. There is still hope we’ll remain in power after May 2015 to continue our great work, and if the worst comes to it, we’ll have to put up with Labour altering some of our policies and stalling a few of our initiatives for five years. They won’t change much, and in five years we’ll return to continue our journey to a far right English only utopia. And within that utopia will be your road to personal salvation and redemption, and maybe, just maybe, Canonisation, but this process will not be quick. Don’t worry, in the worst case scenario, twenty years from now, you’ll end up like John Major is today: a rich man and political failure who’s able to grandstand himself to passing moments of mediocre popularity without any consequences whatsoever. What a luxury eh? Just think of it David. You want me to call you Dave? Great, I will. You’ll notice Major doesn’t even get heckled when going through the member’s area at Lords. This privilege could be yours Dave, someday, eventually.

I was looking through the internet to find a quote which essentially reads ‘the only thing worse than infamy is irrelevancy’. But I failed. Still, it’s a truism. Just remember what I said Dave: what good is being second best when you can be the best of the worst? Embrace the arrogance, the fear, the stupidity and most of all reason. Be brave. Face your failure. It’s your destiny. Just say ‘Yes’ to a debate with Alex Salmond and become the worst PM ever, for the good of us all.

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Song Of The Day – Brand New Second Hand by Peter Tosh

From the album ‘Legalize It’ (1976)

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Essential Listening: TM404 – TM404 (2013)

TM404 (blog)I was the wrong age to remember the acid and acid house scene. What I do remember of that era is viewed through a prism of vastly different priorities. Like Panini sticker albums, playing football with my mates and spending copious hours playing Sensible Soccer and Streets of Rage on the SEGA Megadrive. When viewed retrospectively, and in my case with a detached ambivalence, the majority of late eighties early nineties acid and acid house all seems, a bit, I dunno, shite, especially musically. I understand that this is due to me having no affinity with it whatsoever. Everyone who was there, who was of an age to partake, loved it. They rave about it, excuse the pun, not necessarily for the quality of the music, but for the memories it helps evoke today.

As I’ve never been part of a scene like that, it does pose the question as to whether your experience of music is adversely affected if you haven’t been part of a scene, particularly one which you can identify as belonging to you, in particular with your youth. Not only was there the social element to the acid scene, it was a method of escape, and was, from what I can see, the last earnest attempt at a counter-cultural movement. That Thatcher hated and wanted a stop put to it only adds to its lustre and intrigue for those who missed out. This can be perilous however, as it can lead to revisionism that places a heightened notion of its relevance, musically and culturally, and as consequence can allow a sense of self-aggrandisement for those who were involved.

So what does this have to do with Andreas Tilliander, aka TM404? Well he’s an electronic musician who decided to make an acid record more than two decades after the genre’s inception.

There have, of course, been acid and acid house records released since the acid scene became conglomerated with the wider club scene. If your experience of acid music is external like mine, and without having listened to Tilliander’s record, you might very well be sceptical of its intentions and value. What good is a reverential retrospective of this genre? Or even worse, if you think that’s what it might be and have already had a bad experience with records of its ilk, what then? What if it’s some cheap nostalgia rip off, a phony pastiche, as Zomby’s awful ‘Where Were U In 92’ was?

Thankfully all of these concerns were dispelled as soon as I put TM404 on.

After having listened to it, the clear intention is to make the music the central focus, with as few preconceptions as possible, but you wouldn’t know this going by the album cover. It only has the project’s name “TM404” – I still have no clue what it means, or if it means anything at all – and a picture of a few vintage Roland machines, which, if you hadn’t seen one before, would leave you clueless as to the nature of Tilliander’s project. It’s all very vague, and the accusation can be levelled that it’s willingly mysterious. In my own admittedly prejudiced mind, it occurred to me that this could, rightly, be a conscious attempt to disassociate his music with the original acid label and sound.

As with its façade his last FM profile is also thin on detail, stating that TM404 is an ‘Alias of Swedish electronic musician Andreas Tilliander. Focused primarily on the usage of vintage Roland machines.’ In truth the bio is appropriately minimalist. All the songs are assigned a series of code numbers of the specific make of Roland machine used to create the layers of sound that constitutes each track. The layers of sound can be clearly deciphered and dissected, making it a listening experience that lends itself to sophistication rather than chemical exhilaration.

Add it all together and essentially Tilliander has used the technology of the original acid era to make a contemporary sounding acid record.

This realisation only leads to shift of emphasis and poses different questions, such as; what possessed him to do this? Where did he find the Roland machines? Do they still make them? Most importantly how do you make them work? Or better yet, how does he make them work like this?

The first track of album, ‘303/303/303/606’ offers some clues. It starts off with a deep and abrasive set of beats, rolling steadily and rhythmically. The gaps that remain are incrementally filled in with a two different sets of quicker beats – one of which is higher pitched and I assume from the 606 – that are alternated and faded in and out. Somehow this manages to be monotonously hypnotic and engage and then hold your attention to its changing patterns. It’s certainly not the best sounding track on the album, but it does what it needs to – establish the theme and pattern of what’s to follow.

Given the immersive nature of sound, it immediately becomes clear that this isn’t club music. It’s for the chin rubbers. How and where you’re likely listen to TM404, with headphones, likely reclined, maybe with some chemical assistance, will influence your visual perception of the music.

The videos, unintentionally, add to this notion. You could say that TM404 sells a pre-packaged meme. It makes you want to believe that this is how music like this is made; in a small dark room, with all the machines aligned studiously and thoroughly in formation, while the sound is manipulated easily and effortlessly with occasional twiddling of the dials. If you were capable of doing so yourself, you’d cultivate an acid album in such an environment, wouldn’t you? Or at least I would.

But I suspect the intention of the videos was vastly different. The static camera position leaves the Roland machines in shot throughout, this makes the music the focus, and also mirrors the stripped down ethos and execution of the music. This is a clear departure from the convention for many acid videos, where you had silly kaleidoscopic background effects with some tit wearing a gas mask, like this, which became a symbolic look for the acid scene. Don’t assume that because I think the video is naff for ‘Pakard’ by Plastikman that the song is too, it’s not. It’s marvellous.

By my own confession I’m not nearly qualified to decipher whether ‘303/303/303/303/606’ was the most difficult track to construct. I can say with some certainty that it’s my favourite. Unlike the other tracks there’s no slow build-up of the layers of sound, there’s no gaps or dips in volume at any point. You’re given an immediate wave of three layers of sound, creating an uninterrupted texture, before the other inflections start to arrive. Essentially it’s a structural inversion of the other tracks, in that the longer it runs, the more its flow becomes deconstructed with sudden changes of sound. The initial wave serves as a tapestry for the inflections, who in turn eventually enrich the baseline. Gravy.

The other standout track is ‘202/202/303/303/606’. You’re given the enticing fade in, before the depth of the main beat starts to take over. It crests with the addition of subtle layers that work to elongate it, before a noticeable volume uptick. Then the track starts to deconstruct and the layers are stripped away while a series of different accents are applied. Thankfully its core beat never leaves, the only time it does is when the track ends, and that’s when you hit repeat.

Because TM404 is an acid record that defies many of the cultural expectations surrounding its sound and genre, it probably won’t be considered a classic. No matter, it’ll be niche classic, for those who are fortunate enough to stumble across it and be opened minded enough to try it. Much in the same way Monotonprodukt 07 is, those who are fortunate to know, know. I suspect in ten or fifteen years from now TM404 will be one of the select few albums I’ll return to consistently, as I do now, and perhaps it’ll be to me what the original acid house was to others, musically of course. In my case I doubt it’ll evoke any memories, as it doesn’t belong to a social scene to associate it with. It’s just a terrific record. However, it does make me thankful that there are headphones, and that the best music offers an escape regardless of time and place.

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